


Passive Manipulation

by percussion



Category: D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996), Mighty Ducks (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:27:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/percussion/pseuds/percussion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bombay and Orion discuss the roster. A realistic take on the events of the third movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passive Manipulation

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been nagging at me since I rewatched the trilogy as an adult. Warner and NAHA are real schools. I fudged some knowledge of age levels in youth hockey. Title is from the White Stripes song.

_Averman. Banks. Conway. Gaffney.  Germaine._

Five names echo in Ted Orion’s head as he sits in his new office, reading the roster that Gordon Bombay has so helpfully left on the desk.  They had talked for two hours. Two hours of being honest about fourteen kids who have been talked up by the media since they were ten years old. Two hours of understanding exactly what Bombay has had up his sleeve for four years. Two hours of realizing that this has nothing to do with hockey.

_“This is barely two lines. I can’t win hockey games with this many players. That’s absurd.”_

_“There are fifty-three boys trying out for varsity with Wilson. You play two preseason games with this roster, fudge the JV/Varsity game, and then you and he get together and shape the real teams. You’ll have my kids for a couple weeks, maybe the first month. It’s all business. Most of them won’t last the first semester.”_

That was the most frightening part.

That Gordon Bombay could sit in front of him and brush off his entire roster so casually. That he had been giving these “Miracle Man” speeches for years and lying through his teeth. Ted had expected to be the realist. He had expected Bombay to walk in singing praises of his ragtag players, talking about the NHL and college scholarships and the next Gretzky. He had expected lies. Bombay had given him anything but.

_“Hall and Portman are turning down the offer. Wu’s size is a joke. Reed, Mendoza and Robertson will flunk out in a semester, even with the athlete’s curve that most teachers grade with around here. There are six goalies better than Goldberg already at Eden Hall. Moreau’s filling out transfer forms for Warner in Alberta because she’s smart enough to know that she has no place in men’s hockey. Tyler was a three game ringer who’s only been on ice skates for a year.”_

And just like that, one by one, the Ducks were gone, and Ted is left considering the five who Gordon thinks will make it. He’ll have to suffer a few weeks of embarrassment, sure, and nobody wants that for a new coach, but the actual season will be a winning one if he can just integrate these five backwoods kids into the hockey-born, hockey-bred Eden Hall scene.

_Averman. Banks. Conway. Gaffney.  Germaine._

Except two of the five are hardly backwoods.

_Banks. Gaffney._

Adam Banks has been on everyone’s radar since his brother Andrew started tearing it up in Kitchener. Adam trains with Gary Roberts in Ontario every summer, one of the youngest players to do so, and has spent the past three years playing AAA Bantam with the Edina team.  Julie Gaffney has been playing on boys’ teams in Bangor since she could walk. They always win.

_“Banks will go straight to varsity. He’ll have to play for you for the JV/Varsity game, but you won’t see him after that. And Gaffney’s turning down the Warner offer because there’s not much chance of her getting injured in net. There’s a kid named DiPetrio that’ll probably be your starter, but she’s a solid backup. She’ll keep your team GPA up, if anything. Plus, a girl on the team is always good for news coverage.”_

Ted expects the other three to be more personal. Bombay had something to do with their training, at least. Taught them to skate, taught them _something._

_“Germaine’s game has been insane since he stopped  fucking Moreau.”_

Ted is wrong.  He likes what he sees in Guy Germaine, though: raised in Montreal, dual citizenship, captain of his bantam team, gave Banks a run for his money when they faced each other in the championship last March.  Averman is a different kind of player, Ted’s kind of player – his stats aren’t fantastic, but he’s solid in the face-off circle and has great vision on the ice.

_Conway._

Ted can’t figure it out. This kid scored the game-winner in that PeeWee game, sure, but he was invisible in the Goodwill Games and hasn’t made any headlines since. But he’s the one Bombay talks about in interviews. He’s the one that gets touted as the heart of the team, even when Banks is sneaking cortisone shots from Team Canada’s trainer at the Goodwill Games just so he can play in the final game with a destroyed wrist.

“ _I screwed it up pretty badly with Conway’s mom a few years ago and I’ve been making up for it ever since. Captaincy doesn’t mean anything when they’re that young anyway. He’s good but not great, really hotheaded. If you can get him to listen to you, he might have a chance.”_

The first month goes exactly the way Bombay predicted. The kids are out of their element, and it’s next to mortifying for everyone involved. Ted dodges the faculty for two weeks before getting cornered and confessing that, yes, this is all so Bombay can get money from the Goodwill Games committee and yes, this tomfoolery will be over soon. Banks scores a goal on his first varsity shift and scouts start whispering. The kids start pranking the seniors, which is the most idiotic thing Ted’s witnessed in a long time, and it escalates until two days before the JV/Varsity game. Ted has been counting these days.

_Banks. Conway._

It’s almost an interesting fight to watch, because neither of the two are instigators on the ice. Banks has two or three inches and fifteen pounds on Conway, but Conway’s full of pure rage and it balances out. Banks doesn’t have his fight strap tied down and it costs him – his jersey works his way up until Conway takes advantage and yanks it over his face, blinding him for the rest of the fight. Banks is undeterred. They scream obscenities at each other, words like _fuck_ and _pussy_. Ted waits until he hears _kill_ before he intervenes.

Conway leaves the team and then rejoins the team. Banks joins them for two practices before the JV/Varsity game. He’s so ahead of the rest of the team that it’s laughable. They manage to win the game by the skin of their teeth, and Ted even pulls out a C and slaps it on Conway because it means jack-all to be captain of a junior varsity squad when you’ve got teammates already on the varsity team.

Ted shakes Coach Wilson’s hand and they schedule a meeting for the next day.

_Averman. Banks. Germaine._

These are the three that Wilson claims. Ted comes out of the conference with a roster of twenty-four players and no room for the Ducks. Conway leaves the team and tries to rejoin the team. Ted says no.

_Gaffney._

She’s the lone holdover, and she says she’s fine with it. Ted admires that, admires her benchwarming without complaining, admires her dedication to conditioning, admires her attention to detail when she only plays nine games in the season. Ted’s internal organs rearrange themselves the day she comes into his office crying. Her father has had a stroke, the recovery is going to be long and difficult, and she wants to be closer to home, even if it means playing for a women’s team. The NAHA in Vermont has already offered her a spot. She won’t be back in the fall.

Even though Ted’s heart aches for her, he can’t ignore the tiny knot that has untied in his stomach. That’s the last of them.

_Banks. Germaine._

Ted goes to as many Varsity games as he can, and these two are unstoppable. They’re on the third line together because they’re still freshmen, but they make slick plays and score every so often and everyone is generally enthralled.

The game is a blowout, the Warriors ahead 6-2, and Ted is getting ready to stand, to duck out a little early to beat traffic, when Banks takes the most brutal open ice hit that Ted has ever seen. The entire crowd gasps and then falls silent as Banks is still and then panics in his disorientation, trying to scramble to his feet and failing repeatedly. The people in the seats around Ted mutter “concussion,” as if knowing the injury will dull the scene in front of them. Two feet away on the ice, Guy Germaine, who is barely 5’11 and the lightest player on the roster, gets into his first hockey fight with the offending player. Refs and trainers swarm the ice, trying to break up the fight, trying to get Banks to calm down, trying to eject the kid who delivered the hit.

Ted can’t sleep that night. The event plays over and over again in his head and he finds himself wondering if Bombay has watched the video on Youtube, the grainy footage from some eager fan sitting close to the ice.  

_Averman._

The crowd chants his name, three syllables that make the rink echo. He has stepped up in Banks’ absence, scoring seven goals in five games. Ted has never been more proud.

_Averman. Banks. Germaine._

Ted doesn’t go to the graduation ceremony because he knows none of the boys are there. Banks is rebelling against his parents. Averman has left for the OHL already. Germaine’s family didn’t want to make the trip from Canada, so he went to them instead. Ted walks the halls of the school, listening to the faint cheers coming from outside, and wonders why he ever gave a damn.

One of the pictures in the display case jumps out at him, and Ted realizes that a young Gordon Bombay is staring back at him.

_“. . .it’s all business.”_

_“. . .insane since he stopped fucking . . .”_

_“. . .girl on the team is always good for . . . “_

_“. . .screwed it up pretty badly. . . “_

Ted turns from the photograph and walks away.


End file.
